June 18/99 5:45 am - Beauce Stage 2, Tour of Switzerland Sateg 3

Posted by Editor on 06/18/99

Grand Prix Cycliste de Beauce - Stage 2

Mark McCormack (Saturn) won today's second stage of the Grand Prix Cycliste de Beauce international stage race in Quebec but, after 3 days and 339 kilometres of racing, this is still a wide open race, with 60 riders less than two minutes out of the lead. The situation is unusual for this event which, by this point, normally has only 15-20 riders still in contention as the riders prepare for tomorrow's race defining Mont Megantic stage. Gord Fraser (Mercury) holds a slim one second lead in the general classification over McCormack and Eric Wohlberg (Degree Radio Energie-Shaklee), with a further 36 riders 20 seconds or less back.

"La Beauce" began two days ago with a 1.9 kilometre prologue time trial in Quebec City, won by Wohlberg. Yesterday the 128 rider field tackled a 172 kilometre rolling stage from Levis (a suburb of Quebec City) to St Georges, with former Junior World Points champion Andreas Beikirch (Die Continentale/Olympia) out kicking Fraser at the line. Wohlberg stayed in the lead, but Fraser leapfrogged up from 5th to second, by virtue of a 3 second time bonus for his second place result. In today's 166 kilometre stage around the Beauce region south of Quebec City, Fraser again scored a one second time bonus with a third place result during the mass finishing sprint, to move into the top spot.

The presence of a number of strong teams, each marking the others, has restricted the ability of any small group to sneak away. Besides North American teams Saturn, Degree Radio Energie-Shaklee, Mercury and Navigators, there is ZVVZ and Die Continentale over from Europe. Each of these squads have at least one rider in the top ten.

Tomorrow's 169 kilometre Mont Megantic stage, with its final 5 kilometres of climbing (averaging 8%), has a history of determining the race winner; as last year's winner Levi Leipheimer (Saturn) can attest. In fact, Leipheimer, some 5 seconds back of Fraser in 6th place is in good shape to become the first ever two time winner of Beauce.

Note: We will be providing live coverage of tomorrow's race, beginning at about 11:00 am EDT.